the ballad's i carn't see your love.

[Eamonn]

hi have a copy in vg on the wee bunky's choice label which i would like to sell but i carnt find a price on one would someone here have a clue thanks 

[Swifty]

53 minutes ago, Eamonn said:

hi have a copy in vg on the wee bunky's choice label which i would like to sell but i carnt find a price on one would someone here have a clue thanks 

Can't really help with price nowdays mate , would of thought this is the rarest version , local before the Vee Jay label , at one point had this and the Issue & Demo on vee jay all at the same time , haven't got a scooby doo what happened to them though , great record though !!

[Alan T]

https://www.discogs.com/release/5545046-The-Ballads-I-Cant-See-Your-Love

Sales History for Bunkys Pick version

[Swifty]

17 minutes ago, Alan T said:

https://www.discogs.com/release/5545046-The-Ballads-I-Cant-See-Your-Love

Sales History for Bunkys Pick version

Like a decent copy at those prices mate , to be honest ?

[Eamonn]

Thanks for your help

[Tlscapital]

1 hour ago, Eamonn said:

Thanks for your help

This is the WEE second release that was press at the same time and pressing plant that of the Vee-Jay release FWIW. Which in real beside the label's variant is of no greater value or interest IMHO.

The very first local Oakland, Cali WEE press features a different take / mix that sounds slightly different. That can be of interest to some. Although the 2nd take / mix has the preference of most. Mine too. 

Edited Wednesday at 14:19 by Tlscapital

[Mal C]

Here's the Oakland Press

[Mal C]

If folks are interested, In the Basement ran a great spread on this group years ago... well worth a read...

Ballads_In_The_Basement_41_2006.pdf

[Swifty]

5 hours ago, Mal C said:

Here's the Oakland Press

That's the one I had , didn't realise there was another Doh !!

[Robbk]

On 02/07/2024 at 11:56, Swifty said:

Can't really help with price nowdays mate , would of thought this is the rarest version , local before the Vee Jay label , at one point had this and the Issue & Demo on vee jay all at the same time , haven't got a scooby doo what happened to them though , great record though !!

This was a really weird situation, which rarely occurred in most small label leasing deals to distribute nationally.  In most cases, the small record company makes their first pressing locally, and if the sales go very well, hasn't received enough revenue back from them to pay the cost to press up enough records to meet the high new demand from the record shops.  So they make a regional or national pressing/distribution deal with a larger record company (label) who has much wider distribution and good distributor sales coverage.  Often, the smaller label has not enough cash left for pressing enough records even for local coverage.  So, the small label  leases sales and distribution rights to the larger label and distributor, even for their local area.  When the smaller label did have enough cash, they usually kept the local rights for themselves, and continued to press locally (as Tamla did in 1959-60 when they leased some of their records to United Artists and Chess).  

The first pressing of this Ballad's' release was pressed locally in The San Francisco Bay area.  (I bought it new).  The second Wee Records pressing was pressed up in Chicago, or L.A.  most likely pressed by VJ, the lessee label, probably along with their VJ DJ issues (also containing the "Bunky's Pick" endorsement) as a precursor to VJ's national store stock pressings and their distribution.  Bunky Sheppard was still a producer with VJ at that time, who also had his own labels distributed by VJ.  A local San Francisco Bay Area label wouldn't have printed the "Bunky's Pick" endorsement on their records, without their being distributed by VJ.  It only appeared on Bunky's own labels, and his VJ productions.

I suppose that The Wee owners insisted upon retaining the Bay Area sales rights, but didn't have the money to press up their new local issues, and wanted to fill the local shops' orders as soon as possible.  So they had VJ press up a new batch of Wee issues to get them out faster, possibly save a bit of cost, and have VJ just recoup their pressing costs from the first batches of VJ sales.  You are correct that this 2nd Wee issue is, by far, the rarest issue.  I've only seen a couple of them, whereas, I've seen hundreds and hundreds of the first (Oakland) Wee issue, and many more hundreds of copies the various VJ pressing issues (from L.A., Chicago, New York, The South).  I think this 2nd Wee pressing was pressed in Chicago (based on the label design and font).  L.A.'s Monarch VJ pressing of this record with "Bunky's Pick" on it had a similar style, but the print was sharper, and the letter thickness (width) was a bit different.